She Who Lurks In Hate
by Regal Panther
Summary: There is a very good reason why countries rarely change their capital city. That reason is Montreal - or rather, what was created when she was abandoned.


I feel a little guilty for writing Montreal like this, but once I started thinking of her as I wrote her in this... thing, I couldn't get it out of my head. Enjoy!

Kind of sort of ties in with _Hollow_, which is about Ottawa.

Also, some historical inaccuracy is expected.

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><p>Montreal.<p>

_Mont-Royale._

Mount Royal.

The royal mountain.

There's a reason countries balk from changing their capital cities. They hate changing the location, the name, or the geography of the heart of their population, that which represents, obeys, protects, and rules their people.

That reason is Montreal.

When France first found Canada, he declared the island of Mont-Royale to hold the capital and built a small city to host the delegates he sent to rule his colony. England left it as it was when Canada was handed over to him, and it wasn't official until four years before the 13 Colonies to the south attacked Canada during their Revolution. Those years were more than enough to create, raise, and form a capital that would only give shelter to its own people. Canada raised her himself, his intention to create a companion, one who would value him over all other countries, one who would never forget him. However, his true will was hidden beneath layers of loneliness, and he wasn't aware that his wish to drive all foreign invaders out of Canada was more than a wisp of thought or a thread of the fabric of his dreams.

Montreal, however, sensed it clear as day as she was being formed from the earth. She took it to heart and as each day passed by, her loyalty to Canada grew to dangerous heights. She learned to fight, to cook, to clean, to kill, and to hunt, and used these skills to protect her people when America invaded in hopes of attracting England's attention. She fought, she killed, and she hunted down the survivors until none remained alive. She cooked, cleaned, and cared for her troops, a ragtag group of soldiers, farmers, and peasants with no hope of survival.

And when her city was burned, leaving her hollow, without life for so long that Canada feared her dead, Ottawa was made the new capital. Two days after the ceremony Montreal disappeared from her safe house and a trail of broken, bloodied Englishmen lead from the lonely wooden shelter in the woods of her island all the way inland, to the newly christened Capital. Canada quickly promised England that he would find and punish the perpetrator and the European nation left his lands, returning to England.

A law was passed as Canada followed the trail: all English soldiers who remained in the New World would be given money and land. They would be called Canadians, just as the ones who had been born on Canadian soil. The trail ended abruptly about forty kilometres away from Ottawa - Montreal, as she heard this law being made through Ottawa's ears, had immediately stopped killing what were now considered her people.

Canada found himself at Ottawa's home, what would become the Parliament Building, with a bloodied, bruised, emancipated Montreal - or rather, what remained of his once proud and kind companion. Worried, Canada approached, only to have Ottawa curse him in the tongue of his Natives. Tears streamed down her pale face and her graceful, cold hands shook as she took Montreal's head and lifted it from the ground.

"What have you done?" Ottawa demanded of Canada, who was only thirteen at the time and her junior by almost twelve years. "Answer me! What did you wish for when you created her?"

But she wouldn't hear Canada's response and instead spoke to Montreal as if she were a stray dog with a broken leg, near death, without hope. She promised to save Montreal, to tame the thing that had been created inside her, the thing that reared its horrible head and tore her apart from the inside. The thing whose rage and insanity was infecting the old capital so mercilessly.

Ottawa easily worked the powerful magics of the First Nations as only she could, weaving a strip of cloth out of the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and wild. She added a lock of her hair and one from Canada's head, and made a buckle from bone taken from the arms of both her and her nation. She thickened the cloth with wisps of essence that she summoned from the darkest depths of the oceans, from the highest mountains of the earth, from the strongest winds of the sky, and from the heart of the fires that burned in the volcanoes of the planet. She shaped these pieces into a collar, one that would grow and change as Montreal did, and buckled it in place around the younger one's neck, weaving a spell that would allow only her and Canada to remove it. She added America, Prussia, Norway, and China, but resolved not to tell them, and she and Canada watched as the wounds covering Montreal's frail body healed. Canada, unable to forget Ottawa's words, came to her in the Dream World that night to ask her what she had meant.

"You created something vile in Montreal's heart," she explained sadly. "You made a beast that wishes only to destroy all who are not your people. And this beast tries to destroy Montreal, to take over and consume all people who are not Canadian. It rages inside her heart and controls her thoughts and movements. It eats away at her until there is nothing left but anger and sorrow."

He asked of the collar she had made, one that resembled that of a dog.

"The collar is woven from the very essence of the elements, of our people, and of you and me. It tames the beasts - leashes it to the part of her that is not her, the thing that was once a Capital. The collar makes the beasts sleep peacefully, allowing Montreal to regain control of her physical self, though it also takes away the memories she has that includes the beast. We are the only ones who may remove it and return it at will. Your brother, Prussia, Norway, and China may also unleash and tame the beast, though I will not tell them. It will remain a secret known only by us two for as long as we can keep it. Montreal must not know either, as knowledge of the beast would give it enough power to overcome her."

She showed Canada memories that she had seen when searching for Montreal's soul. The beast that he saw terrified and disgusted him; he couldn't believe that such a thing also existed in his heart, and so he resolved to find and destroy it. Giving life to the one inside Montreal is his greatest regret, and it is also his greatest fear. He knows that, should it be unleashed for too long, it will kill everything.

The Beast is the reason nations avoid changing capitals. Few have ever tried it, knowing that the evil that consumes the hearts of men would invade the empty remnant. They realize that, should they take away the hope and love that usually fills a Capital, it would be replaced with anger and pure hate. The Beast shows them what they fear, and what they fear becoming, and though it has slept for nearly two hundred years, the Nations still sense it, still see it lurking in Montreal's eyes.

This is the reason Canada's many houses across his country have no mirrors. Because when Montreal looks into it, she sees the Beast. She saw it after the collar was made and from then on, Canada and Ottawa keep her away from mirrors. The rare times when she sleeps, it is because she has no choice. When she enters the Dream World she encounters the Beast, and though it cannot touch her as long as she wears the collar, it frightens her so badly that she stays awake for years at a time, only sleeping when her body finally collapses and forces her to rest.

In fact, few do not fear her for the terrible, deformed thing in her heart. None have the courage to tell her of the monster that prowls in her subconscious, for any piece of her memories that contained the Beast were purged from her mind long ago. However, the Natives of Canada have given it a name and a story: the Wendigo.

The Wendigo of the Royal Mountain, She Who Lurks In Hate.

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><p>... What is this I don't even.<p>

Any questions? I'm sort of confused with this brain-child thing, as well.

-Panther


End file.
